What the hell was he even here for? Risking his life for nothing but a paycheck and- oh, whatever. Those thoughts would have to wait. Wisp planted his feet on the back of an armored foe and got two steps up the warrior before having to leap off. A massive axe nearly took his head off as he tumbled through the air. Okay, not bad so far. He ducked and pivoted around a corner, leaping up as he did so. Right into a halberd.

The polearm caught the boy across the chest and spiked him into the earth. God damn! The blow rattled his brain and even with Wisp’s armor, it felt as though the attack flattened every organ in his body. Another armored man moved in and swung a morning star straight down. It cratered into the fortress’s stone floor. The boy slipped away yet again.

A split second earlier and Wisp would have been breathing out of a hole in his neck! A small dust cloud rose up after Wisp’s body as his mechanized kaginawa yanked him away. The hook of his weapon had latched onto the outer wall and pulled him towards it, and if he could just- nope. The loud churning of the retracting mechanism on his arm fell silent as a crossbow bolt hit its mark and shattered the chain before it could pull Wisp to safety. The chuunin came to a quick stop and scrambled to his feet. Several dozen armed, trained professionals charged forward on theirs. Someone put an arrow into his shoulder as he stood. Wisp spat and bared his teeth.

Was he far enough?

"Find the other boy! There's a trail here, he must be running to the exit-"

No, not yet.

Two great pikes lunged at him from opposite directions. Behind each weapon also stood an entire army of steel. Finally, Wisp internally whined, a fair fight.

Momentum was king. Five and six, alerted by the sound of scuffling and gurgling, collapsed their bodies down on Yuu in a flanking maneuver, but that was optimal for his Jyuuken. Their spines arched out from the blows in each chest – one was a woman, Yuu noticed – and they both fell back as their lungs struggled to expand again from the crushing, cutting blow of his chakra-laden melee.

He jumped into the air, spinning, and knocked them both out with a sharp kick to either head, landing between them. That was six – leaving half of the potential buyers, plus the three Ashes, plus the lady auctioneer. A sword threatened to thrust Yuu through, but a quick use of replacement left the sword thrusting through one of the already injured and unconscious buyers, Yuu dispatching the swordsman with a swift kick to the spinal column.

“Seven,” He muttered out-loud...causing the remaining group to all turn and look at him.

So much for genjutsu.

The loaned cloak from Wisp crunched under the weight of a sudden martial arts blow from a young man not more than four years older than Yuu, followed by a second and third strike. Yuu slipped out of the cloak, rolling backwards and free from it’s thick weight, and struck up his combat stance. He couldn’t help but grin in the torchlight – without the armored cloak slowing him down, he was a flicker of movement.

“Eight!” He called, spiraling past the martial artist, fingers on both hands still extended from his lightning fast jabs. Sweat was trickling down his back, a chill of cold, the weird floating sense of battle high overwhelming his apprehension.

In the range of his Byakugan were seven more -- four buyers, three Ashmen. The blonde -- and the stolen eye -- had slipped away in the confusion. Yuu felt a lump in his throat.

He didn't have time to play around with martial arts if he let that eye escape for it. The remaining four hadn't moved much yet, either in fear or out of experience...letting the ninja blow his chakra load and wear himself out on the wimps of the group was an effective strategy, if you didn't care if the others lived or died.

The young Hyuuga rolled his shoulders back and bounced from foot to foot as he put a bit more distance between himself and the remaining cloaked figures. The Byakugan revealed a lot about them -- impressive chakra coils, built muscles, scars from won battles. Yuu wondered if this group had been the primary interests in the Hyuuga guts, while the others he had dispatched had just been interested in auctioneering. Wasn't like he had time to really discuss motivations, here.

"Well?" He was well aware if all seven jumped him, at this moment, he'd probably be dead. His grinning face behind his plastered-with-sweat black hair didn't show an ounce of that fear, however. "Who else wants a demonstration of Hyuuga-style Jyuuken?"

A couple of javelins jutted out at odd angles in his armor and three more crossbow bolts stuck out of one leg. Pieces of his armor cracked and fell away like dead leaves from a tree. As his injuries grew, his options shrank.

But! Wisp howled and swung his great scythe to the side, the chain catching two knights and providing just enough force to tip them over the rocky canyon edge. All this fighting succeeded in drawing the bulk of the Ash Knights to their fortress’s cliffside entrance. Another pair of men shot forward from the behind where their comrades fell. Properly trained they withstood Wisp’s sloppy scythe technique and, with expert precision, wrested control of the weapon from him. The scythe spiraled through the air and disappeared into the canyon’s darkness.

The disarmed Wisp shuffled his feet backwards to avoid more blows he could see the winding path littered with the hundreds of torches. One could look at that sea of countless red flames and be paralyzed with fear. Wisp saw it as a job well done. He pumped his fist out in success.

Another skillful thrust severed his arm, which was then followed by three separate weapons puncturing his body through the broken pieces of armor. Wisp coughed, sputtered, and slumped down in apparent death. A quick cheer went up from the front lines, followed by questioning shouts from the back. “He’s still alive, nitwits! It’s an illusion!”

Mougo Shibaku no Jutsu (False Strike Technique)
Trigger: Clenched Fist
Requirements: 8 Willpower, 8 Intelligence, 6 Tactics
The user makes their handseals and clenches their fist. Anyone who sees this gesture, even in the periphery of their vision, is affected by the vision of this genjutsu. The next time someone moves to strike the character, regardless of whether the attack actually hits or not, the genjutsu makes it seem as though the attack hit full-force. In the post after the attack is made, the genjutsu ends regardless of how many posts are left in the duration.

Damn, that quick? Must have been too dark for those farther away to see the trigger. Wisp only gained enough time to literally crawled up to the top of the canyon. Was he far enough now? Hard to tell without his trusty night vision. No, he wasn’t far enough yet. He bit down and braced himself. Now or never.

Boom! Boom! Boom! The cliff path shook and trembled with the force of several explosive tags. The advancing army seemed to gasp in unison, then retreat just as quickly. Large chunks of rock and earth poured over the path and blocked progress forward. “Damn it! Get the shovels-“Boom! Boom! Boom!

More tags, laid by Wisp during the escape, caused a similar mudslide to the rear. Suddenly the mighty army found itself boxed in on both sides by a problem they couldn’t stab.

Wisp moaned and staggered to his feet. Too close, too close. The blast had knocked the wind completely out of him. Now to slip back in and meet up with Yuu.

A multitude of enormously heavy hooves tore up the earth. Teeth still clenched Wisp looked up towards the starry horizon and saw a multitude of torches held high. A herd of steel-clad beasts clopped forward, each saddled by equally armored, lance wielding soldiers. The Ash Knights mounted division had arrived.

Blood trickled through Yuu’s split lip as a second punch collided with his face. Then a third. A forth hit his forearm. The fifth was pressed aside, parried by Yuu’s dance. The six punch never made it past the windup phase as Yuu plunged a kunai into the man’s heart. The whole mountain of a man tumbled backwards, pulling Yuu forward with him. He stood, crouched, on the man’s chest, who was gasping and rattling for air.

“N...nine.” His own chest was heaving with excertion, his hair spilling over his fine robes like the tentacles of a dead octopus. His eyes glimmered with life, shining jewels against his ruddy and blooded face. A series of far off explosions rattled the cavern, causing dust to shake free from the ceiling and spill down in twisting tendrils. That’d be Wisp, living up to that hotheaded Sunagakure stereotype, Yuu wagered.

He pressed his thumb against his lip and pressed hard, sliding across his face to mop up the blood from his face injury, then folded handsigns around it, throwing his hand down into the ground. A small, brown bird appeared and immediately started to fly up to cuddle against Yuu’s neck, but he brushed her aside and thumbed over his shoulder to the staircase.

“Blonde boy. Sunagakure. Hurry.”

“Yuu-san! You need help here.”

“Hurry,” He said, not turning to look at her. He didn’t need to, with the Byakugan, but his eyes were focused on the remaining three cloaked figures and the three Ashes behind them...and behind them still, that goggles-wearing mystery woman was rappelling down the cave wall. She had the blonde over her shoulder, and presumably the glass jar with Kannon’s eye, as well.

The horseback soldiers held formation as they encircled their mark. Like a mobile wall of steel they surrounded the rather pathetic, limping Wisp. The boy exhaled in frustration as a dozen different lances and drawn bows all lowered and pointed straight at his body.

He could jump back down the cliff, back into the waiting arms of the soldiers he’d trapped there. Or he could stay here and get impaled. He took another second to glance down in the gaping abyss of the canyon.

Eh. Suicide wasn’t his thing.

A dozen notched arrows released at once.

Wisp didn’t like this planet anyway. Too many ugly people on it.

Something soft fluttered in the air. Paper? Wings? Who cared?

There were worse things than being dead, he reasoned. It wasn't all bad.

Midnight

But the devil wasn’t done with Wisp yet, though. Not by a long shot.

The first volley of arrows clattered to the ground just short of his body, as if some divine being had smacked them from the sky. The standard bearer shouted as the realization struck that Wisp still stood. “Again! Fire again!”

Too late! From the darkness above came sweet, sweet justice as a tiny bird weaved in between several sets of scrolls, hurling kunai and senbon down at the knights below. The weapons clattered harmlessly against their thick armor. However the surprise drove them back, just for a second. Where was the attack coming from? What was happening? Were they about to explode? One of the horseback archers scoffed as his comrades hesitated. Shinobi tricks! He drew another arrow and pointed it-

Down. Down? When did the shinobi get in front of his horse?

Wisp grabbed the huge animal by the head and pull it to him, locking eyes with the creature. In the next instant it let out a terrified whinny and pulled away. The archer could barely get out a “Whoa!” before being thrown from the horse like a sack of potatoes. The cry came out from behind as the mounted soldiers realized what was happening “He’s stealing a-“
“Get moving, you fat bastard!” Wisp clung to the side of the horse and drove a kunai right between the sections of its armor. The beast, in fear for its life, now operated on pure instinct and fled. It tore from the formation like a raging bull and easily put a hundred meters of space between Wisp and the Ash Knights in a mere moment.

As the wind rushed around his body, something else zipped by his ear and chirped in an unbearably happy voice. Not entirely sure who or what he was talking too, Wisp reached out with his free hand and snatched the talkative shadow out of the air.
“Make yourself useful!” Another quick charge of chakra loaded the strange creature up with his tracking sand. “Go back to the genin!” With that he pitched the summon as hard as he could back towards the canyon. Behind Wisp roared the pounding footsteps of an entire brigade of warriors in hot pursuit. How in the bloody hell was he going to get away this time?

Shinigami no Metsuki (Eyes of the Shinigami)
The opponent will feel the sudden notion that he is about to die, triggering a vision of his own death in the most gruesome and painful way possible. It makes the victim halt, debating if he should flee from battle and save his life. The technique can only be initiated if the user makes eye contact with the target. A target with a higher willpower than the user will not be affected by this technique.

Yuu was being lead around by the scruff of his shirt, a powerful arm swinging him along the circular platform, his feet barely moving fast enough to keep himself from being dragged about on the ground. Ten clenched his fist harder onto the shirt and pressed his body weight forward, collapsing on top of the boy with his fist against his throat.

"Is this a bad time to try diplomacy?" Yuu spluttered, face turning deeper colors of crimson as he received blow after blow.

A mass of kunai embedded in the man's back, splitting open his robes and catching chunks of flesh. A few of the thrown knifes slipped past the man's bulk and plunked into the stone surface beside Yuu's face, which was more than close enough for discomfort. As the man groaned in pain, Yuu shoved both his feet up to his chest, and bicycle kicked his way out of there, each blast of Jyuuken chakra enough to make the man's body twist and distort.

"I'm not going to keep coming if everytime you just make me deliver messages, you know," The eagle sang, as she perched on Yuu's shoulder. She was disheveled from Wisp's manhandling, and was taking the time to preen her feathers.

Still, she looked a far sight better than Hyuuga Yuu did, face bloodied and busted, clothing a mess, bruising apparent on his exposed arms and neck.

"Sorry, Moriko. I only call on you so much because you're the most dependable." Flatter got you to a lot of places, most especially in the good graces of the Eagle house. "Is that his sand on you, or are you being traced?"

"Yuu-chan!" She said, almost offended. "I'd just go home if some ninja tried to trace me! Don't you trust me?"

"Ok, where's eleven and twelve?" Yuu said, scanning the room, shifting his shoulders outward and taking on a more determined stance.

"I cut them up on my way here," Moriko said, expecting praise.

Yuu, however, slumped his shoulders. "Aw, you know, Hana's already made it to Chuunin, I'm supposed to be extra impressive lately if I want to catch up."

The bird lightly patted his head in comfort. "Let's just finish your mission, Hyuuga child."

Oh, right.

"Ok. Just like last time, cover my approach."

"Got it!"

Yuu ran forward, towards the edge of the platform -- his intent was to dive off after the rappelling googles-wearing mystery woman, but he was immediately caught by the throat, one of the three samurai types slamming him so hard back into the ground that his back made a splintering noise.

"Did you forget about us?!"

"Obviously! Why didn't you guys help the cloaked guys?" Yuu said, almost spiteful.

"They didn't pay us for protection! She did!"

"That's dirty! Who would trust buying from you guys now?"

"She didn't pay me to think about it."

"Moriko!"

Kunai shredded his face -- like Yuu had forgotten him, he had forgotten the bird. He clutched at his face in pain, and Yuu swiftly moved forward to shoulder-rush him, tossing him off the edge. He clapped his hands together as if to get the dust from them, and bounced back a few feet, before knocking out one of the other samurai with a heel to the face.

Nope, he's still standing. Yuu tried an other heel, and a third, and a forth -- but the man was just looking more and more angry.

The third was tangling with Moriko's projectiles, running across the circle, perfectly parrying every attack she tossed out, but unable to get up to the small bird.

"Oh, you three are the real ones, huh?" Yuu said, as he continued to try to knock the man out by kicking him in the chin. "I guess I got lucky with the cliffside there."

As it turned out the art of mounted warfare was not something one could pick up in a few seconds. Wisp swung wildly back and forth on the back of the horse as it bucked and thrashed. Like most living things, it wanted nothing to do with Wisp. All the while the awkward pair of man and beast blundered forward blindly through the cold night. Wisp grabbed something that looked like reins but the beast would not respond to his tugs. Oh, and he mustn’t forget. While wrestling with the creature for control he stole a glance backwards at the Ash Knights, now close enough to him that their archers were beginning to take aim.

Fine, fine! This was fine! He continued to think that even as he heard arrows pounding the horse’s flanks. This was all fine! Perfectly manageable! What did he have left? His kaginawa was destroyed. His scythe rested somewhere at the bottom of the canyon. His armor lay in pieces. His cloak he foolishly gave to the Hyuuga. All he had left was the shirt on his back!

That could work.

The shirt exploded a second later, engulfing the raging horse and spraying the pursuing knights with sand. The minor irritation hurt the knight less than the realization they’d been duped, again.“He’s off the horse! He must have leapt off somewhere behind us, spread out and search-“

The closer he got, the more he could feel the pulsating rhythm of his tracking sand. That bird thing gave him a good enough sense now that Yuu lay somewhere below him. He slid down the canyon quietly, his chakra deafening any noise that his rapid descent might cause. Down, down, down, down, down-

Right until there was no more cliff. Surprise! Where had the cliff gone?! His arms flailed around in open air and he kicked his feet, but there were no more rocks to cling to. Wisp let out a scream that was soon dwarfed by some enormous, roaring noise. What was happening? What the hell! The small child fell into the darkness, once again engulfed with a sense of imminent death.

Then he splashed into the waterfall below.

Name: Cloak and Stagger
Stage One
Description: The user draws a substantial amount of sand (about one small gourd) towards them and infuses the particles within a fabric, usually a cloak or some other large piece of clothing. When the clothing is struck forcefully, the sand is released in a small, vision obscuring burst, similar to a smoke bomb. The cloud lasts only for the post in which it was activated. The user can also choose to activate the sand at any time with the same result

The samurai Ash Warden grabbed Yuu by the ankle, and flung him aside. He rolled a few feet, before pushing himself off the ground and flipping in the air to land back into his combat stance, face trickling with bruises and blood. Through his Byakugan, he saw the other one still dealing with the Eagle’s frequent projectile spam. Fighting someone stalwart enough to deal with his chakra attacks was pretty terrifying, since most combat against non-shinobi ended in just a single blow.

This guy must be samurai, or some equivalent there of. A powerful warrior with an alternative method to chakra for power, capable of fighting on part with shinobi trained individuals...the cream of the crop! Yuu produced a poison vial from his cloak and spun five shuriken on his other hand’s fingertips. He carefully applied the poison by flicking the poison in the air on front of him and tossing the shuriken through the cloud. They didn’t have to hit hard to have an effect.

The samurai, as expected, used his sword to deflect all of them, starting to mock Yuu’s haphazard throwing style—when Yuu yanked his hand down, pulling the shuriken back towards his target with the fine strings attached to the middle rings. Two made their mark in his arm, the rest cluttered uselessly on the floor.

“Yuu-chan! I can teach you how to throw like a proper ninja sometime, you know?”
“Trying to look cool here, Moriko.”
“Needs more work, maybe.”

Yuu scoffed, shaking the strings away from his fingers, and engaged the samurai in melee. His poison was enough distract the samurai enough for Yuu to get his palm strikes in. One, two, three, four—and he was down. Yuu gave him an extra kick into the ribs, just to make sure, and then turned to Moriko’s target--

Now wouldn’t this be a funny way to go? Sure, survive being pelted with arrows, expertly dodge getting cut into a million pieces by an army, and avoid an impaling on the end of a lance. Then drown anyway. What kind of self-respecting Sunagakure shinobi knows how to swim? The strong currents of the waterfall whipped and twisted Wisp’s tiny body around like a ragdoll. At least his wounds would be clean!

After what felt like an eternity without oxygen Wisp managed to get a foothold on some slimy rock. The Hyuuga felt close, which probably meant enemies were close as well. The chuunin, still underwater and pushing against the driving current, found one kunai left in his possession. He put it his mouth, since he’d need both his hands for this next part.

Like some kind of malformed marlin Wisp burst out from under the water. He scrambled on all fours as his eyes adjusted to the new lighting. A big cave of some kind? Lots of bodies lying around, one of them was probably the genin’s. Seeing a single, shadowy figure still standing he spat out his kunai and snatched it up with a wet hand. Only one Ash scout left, and he looked young! How lucky! Wisp was halfway through hurling the projectile before-

-there was no way, it must be some kind of joke-

-he released it. But surely the Hyuuga would notice it! If he’d managed to somehow defeat an entire room worth of armed men, then what was a single kunai?

The Byakugan is only part of the Hyuuga's kekkei genkai. The other part, the ability to make use of every single chakra point, is used fairly passively by the combative Hyuuga to feel out their surroundings, creating a soft buffer to heighten their reflexes. This is the Nanken, one of the basic abilities that the Hyuuga clan uses to perfect their deadly martial art.

As the kunai entered his Hakke, that sacred ground where a Jyuuken specialist is most deadly, Yuu moved on reflex. Muscle memory combined with the guiding nature of his chakra aura spun his body around. For dealing with errant projectiles, a second use of the aura is possible: Inasu, to parry. Yuu's chakra spiraled around the kunai as it entered his inner domain of influence, softening the blow, pushing it ever so slightly off course, and his hand snatched it out of the air by the handle. The momentum of the thrown dagger spun his body around even has he grabbed it, and he started to toss it right back at the man who through it -- but to his Byakugan, Wisp's face was clear as day. Instead, he tossed the dagger to his feet, landing with a skidding flourish.

It was all reflex, all muscle memory, and Yuu did his best not to look impressed with himself.

"I took out this entire black market meeting," He said, gesturing to the bodies around him. "But the mission is a failure. A woman with goggles made off with the auctioneer and my clanman's eye."

He wanted to spit, but that wasn't appropriate in front of the Sunagakure shinobi. He wanted to complain about the dagger in the dark, but he was used to friendly fire in the dark. Not everyone was bless with sight beyond sight. The boy's face was wearing that cringe, anyway. Yuu put his hands on his hips and let out a long sigh. "I don't know if I'll be able to track her against the shifting sands of Wind Country,"

He was mostly talking to himself at this point. His Eagle companion was nuzzling herself into his neck against the cold. "I'll have to wait until it shows up on the market again."

A small cry of frustration before he turned to face Wisp. "Did Sunagakure need anything else from this place, or can we start working on getting out of here?"